Jupiter, Destroyer of Worlds, May Have Paved the Way for Earth

Strange though it may seem, ignoring the amazing title let alone modern scientific theories in the article arguing for migrating and interacting planets including orbital resonance, published 2015 in Scientific American. Jupiter, Destroyer of Worlds, May Have Paved the Way for Earth written by Lee Billings.

In Greco-Roman mythology Jupiter is the king of the gods, a deity who destroyed an older race of titans to become the jealous and vengeful lord of heaven and Earth.

Strange though it may seem, scientific theory lends credence to this historical fiction. As the largest, heaviest object orbiting our sun, Jupiter’s namesake world is the lord of planets, a dominant force in the solar system. Eons ago, while flinging leftover debris from planetary formation out of our solar system, Jupiter probably also tossed some down toward our primordial globe, delivering some of the water that now fills our oceans. Jupiter still shepherds swarms of asteroids, occasionally sending some whizzing harmlessly into interstellar space or on destructive collision courses with Earth and other planets. Jupiter may have even played a role in the asteroid-linked extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, an event that ushered in the reign of our mammalian ancestors. Without Jupiter, humans might not exist.

A new study, however, suggests that without Jupiter, Earth itself might not exist either. Where this and the other rocky planets now orbit there may have first been a previous generation of worlds destined to be bigger, gas-shrouded, utterly uninhabitable orbs. But Jupiter came swinging in, clearing the way for small worlds like Earth by destroying those older planets.Jupiter, Destroyer of Worlds, May Have Paved the Way for Earth | Scientific American